Cinema can be looked at from different fronts, among them that of the body, from which the British academic and psychotherapist Luke Hockley proposes an unconventional look at it with his book Somatic Cinema. The relationship between screen and body: a Jungian perspective.
The book, co-published by the School of Cinema, offers a reading of the body, the unconscious and the somatic experience of watching films based on Jungian theory. Hockley investigates how cinematographic images produce affects and dialogue with deep areas of the psyche, beyond technique or narration, to establish intimate links with the audience from a place that goes beyond rational analysis.
The presentation at the Carlos Fuentes Bookstore of the Public Library of the State of Jalisco "Juan José Arreola" was attended by the rector of the School of Cinema, Israel Moreno, and researcher Adán Salinas. Both highlighted the importance of the text as a theoretical contribution and as a tool that broadens the horizons from which it is possible to think about cinema.
Israel Moreno emphasized that Somatic Cinema joins the Faculty's efforts to preserve, think about and teach the history of contemporary cinema, as well as to promote reading as an act of social responsibility. "To insist on literature -and especially on books like this one- is to insist also on the cultural development of our societies," he said.
For his part, Adán Salinas underscored the value of the book as a trigger for broader discussions on the theories from which cinema is analyzed and interpreted: "One of the most valuable contributions of the text is that, in cinema, the dense psychological content does not have to do with the technical quality of the film but with the relationship of each spectator with his or her own experience," he said.
For Salinas, Somatic Cinema opens the door to a different ontology of cinema, where images are not only seen, but also felt, embodied and lodged in the spectator's body.
Hockley's work raises concepts such as the third image, which inhabits the intersubjective space between the viewer and the screen; the cinematographic frame, understood as the container of the psychological relationship between the viewer and what is shown; and proposes the notion of cinematic experience as a somatic form of unconscious expression that takes shape during the screening of a film and is key to the construction of personal meanings.